Page 56 of Crown of Olympus
He paused, meeting my gaze. Something flickered within his blue irises, but it passed much too quickly for me to make any sense of it.
“My mother told me that Hercules’ mortal wife poisoned him.”
I frowned.
That’s a disproportionately anticlimactic ending for the hero demigod.
The dragon hummed in agreement.
“He built his own funeral pyre and climbed on,” Charon continued, surprising me. “The gods took pity on him, Zeus in particular.”
“Who knew he was capable of mercy,” I muttered.
“They allowed him to burn his mortal body away, leaving only his divine essence. In short, he became a god, married one of Hera’s handmaidens, and had two sons.”
“Interesting…” I mused. “But where is he now? Why is he not clamouring for the throne?”
“Hercules had no desire to follow in Zeus’ footsteps. He took his family and left Olympus.”
“But where did they go?” I grabbed at his forearm, oddly desperate for the answer.
“No one knows,” Charon murmured. “But he’s not dead, you’d be the first to know if he was.”
His gaze dropped to where my fingernails dug into his skin — his bare skin.
“Nyssa,” he hissed, suddenly frozen. “Your hand.”
“Oh! Shit, sorry.”
I retracted my claws, cringing at the crescent-shaped divots I’d left.
“No, you idiot,” Charon said. “You touched me with your bare skin, and I didn’t die.” His eyes snapped back up tomine, wide with wonder. “How? How did you do that?” he breathed.
“I guess… I guess the vision was telling the truth.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
It hit me then — in all the chaos of the bathroom, I’d forgotten to tell him the entirety of my Styx-induced ordeal. So, I told him. Every last detail. Leaving nothing out, not even the part where I’d almost given in to the blissful peace of a calm death.
Charon’s beautiful face fell, his heart breaking in real time. He fell to the floor in front of my chair and wrapped his long arms around my middle, enveloping me.
“Does this mean you can touch people now?” he mumbled into the fabric of my shirt. “Since you chose to accept your power… does that mean it’s safe to touch you? Or do you still have to be careful?”
“Honestly? I’m not sure. But let’s err on the side of caution, okay?”
“Okay, Nyss,” he murmured back.
The next trialarrived much faster than the ones before. After spending a week in bed and another in the library, I guessed it was inevitable.
And so, I now stood in the Parthenon’s long hall, bracing for the next hardship, the next step on the path to claiming my destiny: the crown, and the preservation of realms.
The third trial had almost killed me. Would the fourth succeed? Perhaps the fifth. Or maybe the sixth?
All eleven remaining champions were gathered, with their newly bonded animal companions at their sides. Tails swishedand creatures growled, but it did nothing to coax Hermes into appearing. My violet friend had opted to settle on my shoulder, right above the hydra’s scar. She was still nameless, but I had faith the right name would come eventually.
Allies clustered together, and once again, I stood apart. Interestingly, so did Caelus and Aros. Neither had chosen to join the others — but nor were they together.
They each dominated opposite corners of the chamber. Caelus’ white wolf surveyed the room, and Aros’s manticore lay asleep at his feet. Both sets of severe gazes were locked onto me from across the room. Unwavering. Relentless. I was held hostage to their scrutiny, my own eyes flicking between them both. Silver to amber and back again. The energy radiating off of them felt almost… angry?
